


Wheels of Fortune

by Kateomega97



Category: Premium Rush (2012)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Slice of Life, crackish, side characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 15:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kateomega97/pseuds/Kateomega97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, a bike cop chased a maniac on a bike through a city, rolled away from his job, and became a bike messenger. The wheels of fate might just pedal him into love, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wheels of Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Sneka for snetaing sny snansiction. You're a goddess and that's why my family loves you.
> 
> Title was supposed to be Coppin' a Feel. I could not handle that, sorry.

Kevin sits through the whole trial, after he testifies. And he realizes that he was on the wrong side all along.  
Red-Shirt-Guy (whose name is Wilee, like the coyote, he tells the court) is surprisingly not a huge stoner dick like Kev had him pegged as. And his girlfriend isn't exactly the type of crazy bitch he'd thought she'd be. Well, crazy, but not so much a bitch.  
The black messenger, though, is exactly who Kev'd thought he'd be (douche).  
He listens to how Wilee explains everything (almost) and the glances he shares with the Asian girl (Nima, he supposes) in the front row. Wilee's agreed to testify but he and Nima had established that they wouldn't share any organization names or anything, and that Nima could keep her kid. He watches as the pieces come together and understands that Wilee's smart, with a solid common sense, and incredibly moral, for a guy who broke too many laws to count all in one day. Vanessa's the same way, even Manny and the rest of the bikers, for chrissakes. Sure, they see traffic laws as more of a suggestion than a rule, but they look out for themselves and each other, because after all, they're usually the ones worse off in crash. He can attest to the fact that taxis are bike killers, himself. He gets it.  
Meanwhile, the cops are desperately trying to cover their asses. Vanessa, Nima, and oddly enough, Raj, their company owner, look incensed when Wilee talks about the hospital ride with Monday. All of the messengers look furious, really, and Kev's starting to feel that way too. Seriously, the cops had their heads up their asses for this one. Most of the cops who testify, though, don't even try to give out actual evidence to help the case. They just desperately try to make sure that the jury knows that whatever happened, it wasn't their fault.  
When he gets up on the stand he decides that he's done. He runs the jury through how Wilee's report had come in, how he'd mostly been ignored by the station runners, and how Wilee had had this air of desperation about him, as well as the huge hits that Wilee had taken physically, and how impressive that it was that he'd still been standing after the taxi. He'd admitted to wanting to arrest Wilee when he came to pick up his bike, and how Monday had slipped into the ambulance with Wilee before it had headed to the hospital.  
Then he heads back to the station and quits. He's tired of this bullshit. Sure he wants the streets safe and all that, but he thinks that maybe he's not the one for the job.  
He heads out for a drink.  


He's downing his second beer when a man walks up next to him and orders a beer. It's Raj, from the courthouse.

"Hey, you're the bike cop!" the man exclaims. "The one who got the shit beat out of him following Wilee!"

"Oh, god," Kevin groans.

Raj grins at him over his beer, a spark of mischief in his eye.

"Just so you know, you're going down in history for that. At least, messenger history. 'That crazy ass persistent bike cop', they'll call you."

"Not anymore," Kev mutters into his beer.

"Whaaaaat? They fire you?"

"No," Kevin looks him in the eye,"I quit. Tired of that bullshit, and it all ended up being for nothing anyways. Don't have many skills, though. Best start looking for a cube."

Raj's grin grows wider, incredibly. "Wilee says that desk jobs kill more people than taxis do."

"Wilee's a smart guy. Keep him around."

"Ever thought about biking for a living?" Raj is watching him with that spark again.

"What, like a racer?"

"Nooooo," Raj draws the word out, "like a messenger."

"No way, man. I'm not good enough. Wilee beat the shit out of me, remember?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Wilee's the best bike messenger in New York. I highly doubt anyone could keep pace with him when he wants to fly. The boy rides like the devil. But you caught Manny, and he's our second best. Plus, I hear you're a pretty stubborn rider when you want to be." Raj raises an eyebrow at him.

"Maybe. How does it work?"

"Well," Raj says, "you won't make cop-level money. But it's enough to live on. You get a minimum wage salary plus commission for whatever you bring home that day in deliveries. Sometimes people tip, too. The faster you get the package there, the better you get paid. But it's a great job, really. All the freedom in the world. You use your own bike, but we have a studio for upkeep. Plus we're a community, you know? Everyone knows everyone. It's kind of incredible." Raj looks at him expectantly.

"Can I think about it?" Kev asks.

"Sure. Here's my card."

And then he's gone.

*

Kevin makes it a day. By the beginning of his second day of unemployment he's so antsy that he can't sit still. He grabs his bike and sets off. He finds himself watching the messengers while he rides. A guy has been doored by a taxi and is curled on the ground, his bike wrecked. Kevin's about to hop off and help when another messenger grabs two cones, blocks the lane off, and stops the traffic so that the paramedics can get through.  
Kevin bikes on in surprise.  
Wilee's girlfriend Vanessa is out, too. He thinks about waving but rethinks it when a taxi cuts her off. She grabs the chain around her waist, wraps it around her hand, and shouts that the taxi driver doesn't need it anyhow as she smashes his side view mirror off. He has to stop so he can catch his breath from laughing so hard.  
He sees bikers sharing lunch in Central Park on the grass. He hears playful banter shouted across traffic lanes. He watches bets settles and races won and packages delivered.  
The city, the messenger's domain, is lit with golden afternoon light when he decides he's seen enough.  
He finds himself at Raj's storefront. It's tiny and rundown. Kevin loves it already. He locks up his bike and walks in.  
Raj is shouting joyfully into a headset as he abuses someone named Cyclehawk for "messing with a run." He seems more excited than angry as he banters insultingly. Raj looks up and his whole face lights up with an evil, delighted grin.  


"Gotta go, you dickbag," he bellows into the mike,"copper's here."

Kev thinks he hears someone on the other line say "don't call me for bail you shit-" before Raj hangs up.

"Hey, copper!" Raj laughs out.

"'M not a cop," Kev mumbles, looking away.

"So," and here Raj does this impossible eyebrow raise Kevin could never get right, "want the job or not?"

Kevin looks him in the eye, and says  
"Yes. I want it."

*

Raj shows him the ropes of the building, where the repair shop is, how to keep your bike, how often to eat, how deliveries work, what to carry in your bag, that sort of thing.  
He has to shadow Wilee for the first couple of months to get the hang of it.  
It's a little awkward the first day. Wilee sizes him up and hops onto his bike.  


"Listen, about the whole-"

"Dude," Wilee grins,"relax. You were doing you job. I was the one who broke the law. You had no idea what was up. Hell, I had no idea what was going on for most of that. Plus, you're here, no, copper?"

"People keep calling me that. I'm not a cop anymore, you know."

"Raj's fault. What Raj deems catches on usually. Plus, your hair's growing out. You'll be a ginger soon enough."

Kevin crosses his eyes trying to see his hair. He'd dyed it because one of his ex-girlfriends had hated the carroty orange, and he'd gotten shit about it at the force. It really was growing out, and he'd forgotten to dye it back.

"Guess I'll just leave it. Not like it matters now, huh? The illusion is shattered."

Wilee laughs, and they're off.

*

People rarely call him Kevin again.

*

He loves his job. He shrieks at Manny, swears viciously at cars, and has bright orange hair. Raj drags him to one of the bike bars at least twice a week. On a particularly rough day Vanessa rides past and hands him a sandwich with a wink. He's always wanted a cartilage piercing, so he gets one. It's amazing. He and Raj sit at the bar one night, smacking each other back and forth like children while Wilee laughs his ass off and Vanessa sits in his lap, and he looks around and realizes that he knows all of these people by name. It's incredible. He tells Raj so, and Raj's light up grin comes on, and the whole room gets warmer and brighter.  
"I told you so!" Raj says with a laugh.

He and Wilee train the noobs together. Sometimes he gets bored, and he calls Raj. Raj, he thinks, gets lonely when the shop's empty. Raj likes his shop bustling with bikers, and sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, and he knows Raj hates the quiet (he can see it). So he calls Raj a lot, and they bicker while he bikes and while he eats lunch and while he stops for water. Raj reminds him about meals and keeps his bike working awesome, and sometimes sneaks things like candy bars into his pack in the mornings. Copper gets Raj stupid little things that he thinks are funny for Raj's desk. The others snicker quietly at these exchanges.

Copper's girlfriend dumps him.

Wilee finds him laying in the grass after falling off his bike in Central Park. It wasn't a big deal, and he's fine, he just doesn't want to get up. He's not sure why his girlfriend walked out and he has to get used to the idea. Wilee looks down at him, frowns, and calls Raj.

"Hey. Yeah, it's me. Your boy Copper is just laying here."

Raj mumbles something like "he's not my boy."

"I think his mind's broken." Wilee ploughs on. "I'm sending him back to you, he's taking the day off. Set him up with Die Hard or something in the back, and keep an eye on him. He's gonna hit a light post or something if you send him out now."

Raj mutters again, and Wilee nods and hangs up.

"You hear that, Copper? Get up, go to the shop, Raj'll watch you. Hang out there for the rest of the day and he'll still pay you. He's nice like that. Don't tell him I said that. He thinks he's tough."

Copper nods gratefully and bikes back home.

Raj smiles at him as he comes in and something flips in his stomach.

"Rough day?" Raj doesn't even wait for a response, just shoves him to the couch in the back and puts The Matrix on, grabbing the phone receiver and plopping down against the armrest so he can sit his feet in Copper's lap.  
They watch the movie. Raj answers calls quietly and directs bikers with a content smile.  
Then they watch Alien. Then Predator, the Thing, and Robocop. People come in and out. Raj waves to them all, greets them by name, gives them all exactly what they need.  
Raj is incredible, Copper realizes.  
He falls asleep on the couch, listening to Raj mumble until he's asleep.

*

He has his first bad crash about eight months in. He's doored, naturally. Of course at that moment Raj calls, and the call gets picked up somehow as he falls.  
Shit.  
It hurts, his head, his shoulders, his knees, his back. He lays there for a minute, swearing viciously and trying to shake the stars from his head. As everything slowly focuses, he realizes that Raj is saying something.

"Copper. Copper, honestly, I thought you were a good boy. Copper that's gross. And anatomically impossible. Seriously, what's up?"

He's still swearing, he supposes. He stops and sits up.

Things are spinning.  
He lays back down.  


"Copper?"

"God, Raj, give me a minute, just got doored..." he slurs out. Concussion, he thinks, but the thought floats past and he can't seem to catch it.

There's a strange noise over his headset, like someone getting choked.

Raj seems a little frantic when he gets back on.

"Stay on the line, okay, just keep talking until the ambulance I sent gets there. Don't check out, yeah? What did you break?"

"My bike...." he gets out. Sleeping seems really nice right now. The taxi driver is snapping his fingers in front of his face.

"Other than your bike, you morally upstanding ginger-headed dipshit."

"You think you're so hurtful," he's really slurring now, "but when you insult people it means you care about them. I know that."  
He has no idea why he said that.

Raj makes the choking noise again. "Okay, copper, what hurts?" Raj sounds a little breathy.

"My hands. Yeah. Definitely bleeding. And right wrist. And head. Head, a lot. Things are spinning. Can I take a nap?"

"NO!" Raj is definitely bellowing now. "Keep talking, okay?"

"Jesus, calm down, Raj. Tito's trying to read."

"Tito's not even here right now." Raj sounds, like, weirdly messed up. "No one's here right now, thank god."

"Why? Isn't it lonely?"

"Well, I'll probably have a panic attack about five minutes after you hang up and no one but me should have to suffer through that." Raj is matter-of-fact but hoarse.

"Huh...that light is really bright." A paramedic is shining a flashlight in his face.

"What light?!?"

"Chill, it's a paramedic. I'm up on the stretcher. Oh, hey, you!" He motions for a scene paramedic. "Here. Take this, and give it to the big muscly black guy on a bike that'll come by." He shoves his bag at the paramedic. "Got it, Raj? Send Manny to finish the delivery before you freak out."

Raj coughs like something's suffocating him. "Yeah."

"Good....'m gonna take a nap, now. Fix my bike, will ya? Bye Raj. Love you."

Raj sounds oddly like he's hyperventilating before everything fades out.

*

It's all good. Concussion heals well, thank god for the helmet, wrist is just sprained. He'd just gotten knocked around a bit. They let him go that night with the rule that someone has to keep an eye on him overnight. Vanessa picks him up.

"You crazy fucker, what the hell?!" She practically screams at him.

He grins, still a bit woozy.

"Jesus, you're as bad as Raj! Calm down! I'm fine. Why else would they have let me out?"  
She scowls at him and he shrinks a little in his seat. She's honestly a force of nature when she's angry.

"What the fuck did you say to Raj, speaking of?" She hisses. "I showed up two hours after you wiped out and found him surrounded by crumpled up post its and curled up asleep in Tito's chair. Tito said he'd found him hyperventilating into the headset. Tito's been running the show for the day."

"Oh. Well, he called me as I crashed. So it's all a little fuzzy to me. I'm not sure but I think I swore a lot."

"Jesus, you talked to him during a paramedics run? That's a first. No wonder he flipped out, copper. Raj doesn't like it when his favorite bikers take hits."

"I'm a favorite?" He grins.

She looks at him in shock.

He frowns at her. "What?"

"Boys are stupid." She declares, and rolls her eyes.

*

Copper does not win the Alleycat race. He does, however, take third, to Wilee and Vanessa, and really, he's okay with that, because they're crazy. He sits with Raj and they drink and laugh and cram into one seat because the bar's too full for them to each have one. Their sides are touching, and each and every warm brush sends tingles up  
Copper's arm and down to his toes. They're laughing and grinning at each other over Wilee's messy, drunken speech where he declares his love for Van at least three times, and she laughs at him and grabs him by the ankles to drag him off the stage. Copper takes a moment and thinks to himself, 'my god, I never would have had any of this if I'd stayed a cop' and then shouts it aloud.  
Raj laughs, his head tipped back, and nearly falls off the chair. Copper grabs him by the waist to keep him upright and hauls him in close, so that they're nose to nose.  
Raj, Copper notices, isn't laughing anymore. He's not even smiling. He's got his mouth open a little, eyes wide, a little nervous-looking. Maybe it's because Copper's hands are still wrapped around Raj's waist. There's something that Copper's supposed to do, but he's forgotten it because Raj is a little flushed and it's really distracting.  
Vanessa pushes her face in right next to theirs, nose almost making contact with their own nasal appendages.  
"Kiss him!" She hisses, and then she's snapping back and Copper's slammed his body into Raj's and they're kissing and oh God it is hot. It's open mouthed, filthy, and Raj runs his teeth over Copper's bottom lip and oh, God, Copper can't deal with that, and he's falling backwards out of the chair onto the floor and pulling Raj on top of him and Raj is gorgeous, no, really, all flushed and swollen lips and they're both laughing and he can see Vanessa and Wilee laughing too and even Manny and he just doesn't care anymore and he's kissing Raj again and they're grinding up against each other and someone that sounds suspiciously like Tito shouts "get a room!"  
So they do.

*

The new girl stares hesitantly up and the enormous ginger with three rings through his ear and a tattoo down his arm of the wheel of fortune. He and the short one in the red shirt are explaining the rules, and how to take care of your bike, for anyone who decides they want the job. Ginger, who the red shirt keeps calling Copper, looks very intimidating.  
A scrawnier Indian man (Raj, she remembers) wanders into the shop, shouting pleasantly at a headset. He opens the fridge and grabs a beer, then a hammer, and somehow manages to open the beer with the hammer. He wanders past the instructors, still bellowing, when the hulking ginger stops talking, grabs him round the waist, and spins him around so he can kiss him. They're smiling adorably at each other. Copper leans into Raj's headset and says  
"Hey. Cyclehawk. Leave Raj's runs alone or I'll blow him while you call. Every time."

Raj grins mischievously and says "Cyclehawk, please, feel free to mess around with my runs!" Before waltzing off to the front room.  
New Girl thinks that she'll stay. She quite likes it here.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it feel free to comment and so on and so forth.  
> Premium Rush is like, the worst movie ever if you read the reviews of it but honestly I loved it it was so cute. Plus I love bicycles so there you go.
> 
>  
> 
> In my head Copper took his police bike with him when he left but it's a little grungy now and some of the NYPD decals are coming off and the other messengers tease him about it.


End file.
